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Tuesday, October 27, 2015

18th anniversary (writing now because we, duh, married on one of the busiest weekends of the year)

D and I married on All Saints' Day eighteen years ago.

We discussed getting married on Halloween, but I knew that would eliminate a ton of family members from attending, which would have been great on the budget but sucky on the celebratory effect.

With regard to our selected anniversary date, we didn't realize the following:

1. We would always forget our anniversary because we think, "Our anniversary is in November," without fully grasping that it is DAY 1. We don't have any actual time in the month of November to prepare. As our lives have gotten busier, we have pretty much agreed to forego cards and other such trinkets.

2. We would be so busy with our own tribe of children that actually celebrating our anniversary would be an afterthought. By the time Halloween ends at midnight, we will have been to approximately 167 Halloween parties, 2 pumpkin tosses, 6 trunk or treats, and a spooky orchestra concert. In years' past, doing something on our anniversary has been just.one.more.thing on the calendar, and no thank you.

(Hence, the reason I'm posting this now instead of the weekend.)

With regard to marriage, when we started out, we didn't realize a whole heck of a lot more, like.....

*how, in retrospect, the first 4 years felt like play-acting.

*how, in retrospect, years 4-6 were crazy good.

*how our home eventually went from feeling not as homey as our parents' home to the place where we decompress and breathe, and we didn't realize when or how it happened.

*how he and I would begin at opposite ends of a spectrum on issues, meet in the middle and somehow bypass each other. He is where I used to be, and I am where he used to be.

*sometimes the best you can say about your marriage is that you've simply put too much into it to deal with starting over with someone else, so you suck it up, watch things blow over and move on.

*how usually episodes like the aforementioned are followed by moments when you know this person is a really good fit for you, for a variety of reasons.

*you have to get really good at ignoring a lot, including some of your own stupid behaviors and thought processes that really amount to nothing productive.

*how much of a feeling of pride and success comes with sticking with the same person for this many years and not once having raised the iron skillet over his/her head in the middle of the night.

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About Me

I am a mom of three diagnosed with OCD and GAD during my 2004-2005 postpartum period, although I very likely have been dealing with both since about age 10. They didn't disorder my life enough to require meds and therapy until after I became a mom.